Page 35 of Laird of Wrath

Everything around them was burning. Flames licked up the curtain walls, rising to the midnight air. Ash and embers danced in the air around him. The courtyard turned into a furnace by the raging fire. All around him, people were shouting in fear and agony as they fell to their deaths, hopeless and powerless.

And he was kneeling there, in the middle of it all, with Rhea in his arms.

No, no, this wasn’t Rhea. It was only Rhea’s body, her spirit long gone. All that remained of her were a few final breaths, a few more seconds of feeble life.

Where is the blood comin’ from?

His hands searched for the wound, but he couldn’t find it. Rhea seemed to be bleeding from everywhere, the life sapped out of her with every heartbeat, with every push of her blood through her veins. Still, he searched frantically, his hands gripping anywhere they could reach and coming away soaked in more blood.

Bile rose in the back of his throat. How could this be happening? What had happened to her? What war was this? Who hurt her?

Her eyes were pleading silently with him, though for what, he couldn’t tell. Was she asking him to help her? Was she asking him to end her torture?

Callum could do neither. The screams, the flames, and the clash of swords as the last few soldiers fought disoriented him, making the world around him spin. A wave of nausea assaulted him, relentless and violent, and sweat dripped from his brow, dragging old blood with it. Was it his own? Was it someone else’s?

A weak whisper echoed around him, dragging him deeper into despair.

“Please,” Rhea said. “Please.”

It was as if that one word was all she could say, as if her entire life had been distilled down to this one thing. This one plea that he couldn’t fulfil for her, one final request that he would have to ignore.

“Please,” he echoed, something hot running down his face. He didn’t know whether it was blood or tears. “Please, Rhea… stay with me.”

Rhea looked at him then, truly looked at him, her gaze clear and bright and fully conscious. And more than anything, accusing.

“Ye did this to me,” she said, her face contorting with hatred and pain. “This is all yer fault.”

Callum’s eyes snapped open, and he shot upright in bed with a gasp. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was or what was happening around him. He was drenched in sweat, the ghost of the flames lingering on his skin. The covers were bunched up around his legs from how much he had been thrashing around, and his throat was hoarse, as if he had been screaming.

Had he been screaming? Had anyone heard him?

Surely not. If anyone had heard him, there would be guards in his room by now.

He was glad for it. He couldn’t imagine the embarrassment he would have to deal with if anyone heard him scream like that in the middle of the night just because of a nightmare.

I am a grown man. I am a laird. And here I am, frightened by nothin' but a dream.

And yet, no matter how much he berated himself for it, his heart was still racing, and there was still a terrible, bitter taste at the back of his mouth.

He had been frightened. He had been frightened by this vision of war, by the possibility of losing Rhea. And most of all, he had been frightened by the fact that in this nightmare, it had all been his fault.

He had been the one to start the war. He had been the one to bring it to their doorstep. And Rhea had been well aware of that, putting blame where blame was due.

In real life, she had told him multiple times that this wasn’t a war worth fighting. She had begged him to stay. And yet he still believed the best thing for the clan was to eliminate the threat.

I willnae lose. I cannae lose. I will win this war, and I will make sure Barclay is nay longer a threat to anyone. Nae to me, nae to the clan, and certainly nae to Rhea.

It was all to protect her, and this had been nothing but a silly nightmare. It was nothing but a scenario his mind had conjuredup in a bid to scare him. And if there was one thing Callum had resisted all his life, it was fear.

With a sigh, he swung his legs off the bed and stood, the floorboards cold against his feet. He dressed haphazardly, throwing on his trews and a shirt, and then stepped into his slippers, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep for the rest of the night.

The nightmare had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. Such dreams were getting more and more frequent these days, plaguing him constantly and leaving him sleepless and exhausted, but there wasn’t much to be done. The nightmares would continue as long as the threat of another war persisted.

And even then, even once he neutralized the threat, he doubted they would stop. He had seen so much death, so much pain that the war now followed him in his sleep, making it impossible for him to have a single calm night.

Eventually, he would drift back to sleep, or at least try to. But for now, he decided there was no point in tossing and turning, torturing himself until the first hours of dawn just to try and sleep when he knew for certain sleep wouldn’t come. So instead, he left his room and began to wander the empty hallways, absorbing the quiet of the night.

The castle was so different at this hour. Usually, there were servants and guards everywhere, all of them bustling about to do their chores for the day. Now, there were still guards patrolling the halls, but fewer of them. Most of them were outside, on thecurtain walls, watching for any signs of danger, so Callum didn’t run into any of them as he roamed the castle.